


Awkward Discussions

by Whuffie



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whuffie/pseuds/Whuffie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble about Cullen's best friend harassing him about his infatuation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awkward Discussions

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of a writing challenge which I never finished due to personal reasons. The challenge is to take a random sentence from any book and use that as the first line of your story.

_The Turn of the Screw (and Other Short Novels)_ by Henry James (and taken completely out of context from pg 392.)

 **“Then why didn’t you get her off before?”** Kenley kicked off his scuffed boots, tossing them carelessly into a corner as he propped his feet up on the edge of their desk. Rocking onto the back legs of his chair, he flicked a spiced nut into the air and caught it in his mouth on the way down. “You know what to do, don’t you? You just admitted you liked her, and it’s no secret. The whole Tower knows it by now.”

Cullen nearly dropped his breastplate, staring at his best friend in the reflection. If he could have clawed a hole in the stone floor and sank into it, he gladly would have. Heat painted his forehead, cheekbones, jaw and ears. “Of-of course I know what – what to do!” He pretended to buff the sword of mercy on the front of his armor, but it was so frantic that it made Kenley’s spritely amusement louder. “I-I already told you. We didn’t! We can’t! Audrie is a mage and we’re templars. It’s forbidden for us to-to…”

“Not if you don’t get caught, and what else can we do for fun around here? Praying gets really lonely, my friend, and statues of Andraste never warm your blanket. There’s nothing but mages and templars in this tower. You have to know everyone is stealing a little bit of fun here and there where they can. It isn’t like you’d be the first, and the way she looks at you? I’d bet my month’s wage she would love to have her hands all over you. There’s plenty of things you can do with a woman, you know, without risking putting a baby inside her. Haven’t you ever even thought about it? Maker, she’s gorgeous, tell me you have at least thought about it.”

Cullen swallowed and loosened several straps on holding his armor on the stand so he could tighten them again. “I have.” The confession was nearly a whisper, but it would have been a lie to deny it. There were rare times of privacy, like when he bathed, that he could let his imagination wander about what she looked or felt like beneath her robes. There were times when she dropped something on the floor and they’d bend down at the same time to pick it up. Her hair smelled like vanilla and berries when she did that, and he would occasionally let his less than fertile imagination try to picture a life with her. He would never know what it was really like to feel her beneath him, but there was no harm as long as he didn’t act on it. He never would, and his will was too strong to falter into an action which would defile both of them for a momentary weakness in pleasure. Most of the time he tried ardently not to think about it because he might slip and say something to Audrie which was inappropriate. Kenley was his best friend, but he wasn’t helping the situation.

“Well then, why not act on it? It would be easy for you the way you two are alone together so much. If only I were so lucky, but I’ve been assigned to that boringly middle aged Hobbes who does nothing but talk about his theories to Torin or teach. Greagoir would be furious if he ever caught you with Audrie, but we’re back to only mages and templars around here. Like Tai. We could use a few more pretty ones like her.” He rattled his tin plate and offered Cullen a few of the rare treats which they were both fond of, and made his fellow templar cease hiding behind his own armor.

“It-it wouldn’t be right.” Cullen hesitated, then wiped his hands on a clean cloth before accepting the offering. “I’m a templar, and Audrie a mage. We can never be together.” He realized belatedly what Kenley had just revealed, and knew he had a fondness for one of the few women templars who was in Kinloch Hold. She wasn’t short of admirers because of the novelty, but had Kenley actually been the one to get her attention? “You and Tialar?”

“Was, is, and am so long as Greagoir doesn't hear about it. It’s not just about that, you know. She’s got a lot of the same ideas you and I do about templars and mages working together.” He couldn’t resist being smug about the sex, but Cullen merely shook his head with a troubled frown and went back to polishing his armor.

“Let’s just … talk about something else.”


End file.
